Balance

    Her slender fingers framed around my wrist as she pressed the pen onto my skin, the ink bleeding on steadily and intentionally. Slowly, surely, she cursived her way across my wrist, tracking on my body in demure, ebony thought.
    “Don’t look,” she murmured through her smile, her lips quietly parting as she concentrated hard. And though it was a simple act of tattooing, it spoke of so much more.
    The scene, two friends on a bed, one wracked emotionally by life while the other leaned over her arm, imparting peace the way she knew best. The calm of her presence, her sincerity, her intentionality. Sometimes it is enough to simply be with someone. And sometimes words need not be spoken. There is a feeling that passes between you both. You are not alone.
    As the rain drops slid slowly down the window, I did my best to stop those that threatened to push out of my eyes, concentrating instead on the feel of the inky wetness left by her slow and deliberate tracing.
    “Balance.” My eyes flicked from focusing on the window and back onto my wrist. “That’s what you need in your life right now.” And there it was, solid and sable and stark against white skin. Firm. A gentle reminder that the sadness and frustration I felt was part of human existence. Inevitable. Measured on the scale of being alive, balanced against the joy that coursed daily through the veins underneath her tattoo and broke out in smiles upon my face.
    Comme ci, Comme ça, like this, like that.
    Such is life. A balance of sobs and smiles, kisses hello and goodbye, passions, pushing, perseverance. When we agree to life’s pleasures we also agree to its pains. And yet, the presence of such pains make the pleasures so much sweeter. A tightrope performance that calls for equilibrium in every aspect of every part of existence.

On Writers

If you drowned in your tea-cup, what would the world say?
Would it cry at your irreverence and gasp in great dismay?
Or would it simply smile, not even bat an eye
As you went swirling downward in a steaming vat of chai

If you set sail in your bathtub and shoved it out to sea
Do you think the world would nod and show dear sympathy?
Or rather would it laugh and whisper without reason
That the bathtub's the wrong color and completely out of season.

If you dangled your feet from a rocky mountain top
Would someone worry for your safety, call out for you to stop?
Or would they pass by uncaring, they see such every day
And all you'd want was to impress them in just some simple way

If your kiss could heal the mute, your lips a curing fire
Do you think they'd capture you, rent your mouth for hire?
Because the world is a jaded place, it looks quite dim from here
The glass is dirty, the cat is old, the plate's been broken, dear

The people are all scratching at the door of innovation
And not one comes to rescue them, though they beg every nation
Keep on pleading, keep on asking, someone's sure to hear
For the silence is approaching, the shadows draw quite near

All they need now is someone to tear away the veil
The cloth that hides the truth and promises goodness will prevail
That's why God made writers, sent them out among man-kind
To uncover all the sweetness that lies hidden 'neath the grime

And as they scrape away the mire with their sharpened pen
They do not create the truth, merely reveal what lies within
So thank God that we have them, or else you simply might
Have been swallowed by the shadows upon this very night

Waterfall

  Your life is flowing perfectly down stream, a crystal clear example of tranquility, serendipities skipping through the water, joy pounding over the rocks.
  It's all good and beautiful and just the way you wanted it.
  The sun is setting. It dresses your stream in golden hues, and the gurgling water bubbling over the rocks is a siren call to forget your worries and come and play in the cleansing stream that washes lovingly over your body.
  You inhale a deep breath and take the plunge, shedding your clothes and exposing yourself to the last few rays of the sun that kiss your goose-pimply arm. You're vulnerable, but it's alright. Because you trust the stream that's swirling over you, carrying you and your life and your future along with it.
  Eyes closed, you submerge yourself completely in the water, blowing bubbles through your nose.  
  You're laughing, humming, dreaming to yourself. All is right.
  Pounding.
  Your eyes snap open.
  Pounding.
  What?
  Pounding as loud as thunder fills your brain and shakes your body to its very core.
  You're rushed, swirling, tossed over the rocks, bubbles surround, your eyes are torn open and held there, what's going on because you don't know, and you just want it to stop so you can catch your breath, you just want it to go back to what it was before, and you're numb because your body won't respond, and it's all a bad dream and.
  Then it's over. You've been swept through the waterfall and down its arms into its heart.
  And now you lie on the rocks, stunned. Breath knocked out of you, all sense of direction gone, looking for reason and sense and who on earth thought it would be a good idea to place a freaking waterfall in the middle of your happy little stream.
  But the hard part. The part you have to accept. Is that you know who put the waterfall there. It was Him. And as much as you don't want to admit it, you know why.
  It's because so often we start to depend on ourselves when life gets easy. Because so often we can forget that we need Him. Because so often it all goes wrong just when it's all going right.
  Isn't it sad that it takes a waterfall to interrupt us and send us rushing back to Him?

This is the way the world ends.

There's a whimpering cry for help

Ignored 

A feeble undistinguishable yelp 

Unheard 

And you know the silence will devour her 

If you don't give a damn. 

The shadows are growling for flesh

Dissatisfied 

The darkness is yearning for blood -- fresh 

Decried

And all that you say is wrong because to her

The world has turned its back. 

Her eyes rove your face with hopelessness 

Despair

And comforting brings only distress

Unfair

The blood pounding in her head makes no sense

Because it carries only empty thoughts. 

How to drag her from the hole

Crushed

When the emotions rip out her soul

Unjust

You would wrench out the sting if you could

But the poison's bled too deep.

And it ends the way it began

Whimpering

Because a gun has a high demand

Shivering

She knows death will be even colder then

Her fears that never cease.

It ends with a bang

It ends with a whimper

It ends with a friend fled from me.